


bittersweet, sweep me off of my feet

by Legendaerie



Series: just another brain on the campus [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, the're both idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 09:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: Freshly back from a weekend away, York has a sunburn. Carolina's cure might be worse than the sickness, though.





	bittersweet, sweep me off of my feet

**Author's Note:**

> more of me rolling around in sarah's sandbox, aka we were talking on twitter and Things Got Intense. happens before the concert road trip.

The first thing Carolina says when she opens the door to find her best friend back from his weekend trip, scarlet-skinned and delighted as a mud covered dog, is “you look awful.”

York  _ sticks his tongue out at her. _ “I look hot.” 

“Because you're burnt to hell and back-- look, you're barely willing to move.” 

“That's just my inherent laziness.” His smile stays on, fixed firmly in place like his stance in her hallway, hands on hips. Carolina swats him on the arm to prove a point and he hisses. The skin is fever-hot under her touch, and bright red.

She fully opens the door to her room with a sigh of resignation. “Get in here and take your shirt off. I'll get the aloe.”

She can’t believe she’d missed him - cell service had been terrible (apparently) and the silence had been, at times, lonely. Carolina’s roommate left halfway through the summer semester and her double major makes it hard to have time for friends. Except for York, who shares almost a third of her classes on average and learned how she liked her coffee the second week she’d known him. With him over so often half her floor assumes (wrongfully) that they're dating, it's easy to forget to make more than three friends at a time.

In the present, his sunburn looks worse once his top is off - like he'd been running around shirtless the entire trip. He’s wearing his pants low enough today she can see the line where his swimsuit must have been. At least he hadn't been nude. “Did you even bother with sunscreen?”   
“Before we went swimming, yeah.”

She dwells on that mental image too long, absently pumping out the aloe gel until it's dripping off her fingers. York's already laid out on her futon, arms crossed and watching her with his nose in the crook of his arm. The seamless sky in the window behind him puts the blue of his eyes to shame, and yet she can't look away from him.

“Dumbass,” she says, and slaps the freezing cold gel on his back. His reaction is immediate; a sharp gasp, an arch of his back, a whined complaint of “son of a bitch that's COLD.”

Despite her feigned irritation, Carolina is careful to be gentle as she works the aloe into his skin, careful not to spread it too thin and lessen the healing effects. After the initial shock, York relaxes, melting into her futon with the occasional sigh. His stare across the room at her mini fridge, where he'd spelled out "the best thing about dreams is you" with some of her magnetic words (and used the rest to form an ejaculating dick) has gone heavy-lidded.

She adds some aftersun lotion to her palm and starts on the second layer of treatment. “This should make it peel less, if you keep it up.”

York hums into his arm.

Her shirt is starting to get stuck to his back every time she reaches for his far shoulder, so Carolina straddles his hips to give herself better access and that's when things started to get weird.

He goes rigid under her, as though the lotion is somehow half as cold at the aloe was (which, even to her, did feel pretty cold) and when he relaxes again under the steady motion of her hands his gaze is rapt on the black refrigerator. 

“Did you clean?” he asks, his voice rough like he’d just woken up from sleep.

“Yeah. Needed a break from all those damn papers.”

“Fridge too?”

“Inside and out,” Carolina says with a frown, squirting more lotion into her hands. She leans up onto her knees to get at his arms, which he obediently unfolds for her in turns.

“Looks nice,” he says, and then with a touch of honesty, “didn't expect you to keep the message I wrote there.”

“I didn't have anything better to say,” she says, shrugging before sitting back on him. The heat of him between her thighs is distracting, tempting, and she keeps working the aloe and lotion into his skin.

Underneath her, York lets out a breath and shifts. “Should probably get going.”

Carolina snorts, well used to this game where they both act like they want to study, but dismounts anyway. “Fine. Let me do your chest.”

“You don't have to.” York levers himself up, movements stiff. “I've got homework to catch up on--”

“Sit,” she snaps, planting her slippery hands on his shoulders and pushing him back onto the couch. “It’ll be fast.”

“Carolina--” he says, but she grabs her bottles and kneels in front of him, shoving his legs open. York takes in a sharp breath, and her eyes note the relevant details - the lighter pink on his chest, fading down to his stomach as though his back took the worst of it. She’s already reaching for the aloe by the time she processes the fact that he’s obviously hard in his sweatpants, maybe ten inches away from her, and by then she's committed. Determined.

To save time, Carolina mixes the aloe and the lotion in her hands first, stirring it in her palm with a finger. She meets his eyes when she first smears it on and god, it's almost as bad as staring at his dick because he knows, she knows he knows and he knows she knows he knows he’s got a boner.

“It's fine,” she says, inexplicably doing the opposite of her self-preservation instincts. “I don't care.”

“Great,” and he clears his throat again, staring off at some spot above her shoulder.

Carolina sneaks a glance down as she starts to work on his stomach. They've known each other long enough she’s had near misses with his dick (startled him out of a shower, shared a hotel room and watched him slink to the bathroom with morning wood in tight boxers) but never this close. She shouldn't feel tempted, Eve with the apple. Or would it be with the snake?

They're close enough she can hear the change in his breathing from before; a little faster, rougher, not quite winded but as though he’d jogged up the stairs to come see her after his weekend. Knowing him, he might have.

The red on his chest has intensified, and it's with something like dread that Carolina notices how burned his face is, too.

“Almost finished,” she says as she mixes up one last blend - less lotion here, to prevent any breakouts - and dabs it on his nose. 

York’s eyes close immediately, but there's none of the peace from earlier. He’s tense, anxious almost, and yet holds carefully still as she spreads aloe over his cheeks. Her fingertips trace the scar over his left eye, like she’s wanted for months, and it’s rougher than she expected. She shouldn't feel pity for something that happened that long ago, but then again Carolina shouldn't feel a  _ lot  _ of things when it comes to her best friend.

She puts the last glob on his forehead, free hand dropping to rest on his thigh, and York’s eyes snap open. They're dark blue, darker with his dilated pupils, and Carolina thinks  _ shit _ and  _ fuck _ and _ I really should kiss him _ all in the space of a second.

She can’t. His gaze drops to her mouth, and back up. She wipes her thumb across his forehead, and not even comparing him to Simba in her head can break the tension of the moment.

She refuses to kiss him, even as the hand that's supposed to be running aloe into his forehead comes down to cradle his jaw, where he’s sporting sandpaper stubble from the long car ride back from the lake. Did he even shower before coming to see her? Did he just drop his bags in his room and come over, her company a greater relief than cool water on raw skin?

He couldn't have. Friends don't do that. Friends don't lean in to each other's touches, wet their lips while staring at the other’s mouth, and they certainly don’t--

“Hey Carolina can I borr--ohhhh fuck.” 

Her hallmate’s voice splinters the moment. Carolina jerks away, eyes snapping open, and smudges an obvious dollop of aloe across York’s face without looking at him. The hand on his thigh jumps off, too,and she wipes it on her cut-offs. “What?”

“I--” Kaikaina stares at them, completely topless in the doorway, and somehow looks embarrassed on their behalf. “I am-- so sorry--”

“It's fine,” Carolina says, with about as much truth as when she said it earlier. “Just put a shirt on or something.”

“Can’t. I'm out of detergent.”

“Do you want mine?” York asks from behind his hands - one reaching out to fumble blindly on the futon for the one he’d discarded. Indignation ignites Carolina’s temper, and she snatches York’s shirt away from him before he can find it.

“I've got it,” she says, rising to dig out her largest shirt - which she knows will still be woefully tight on Kaikaina and do nothing to hide her nipple rings - and her detergent. “Shoo.”

“I should-- probably be going, too,” and York helps to bustle Kaikaina out of the room, her arms full and thus giving her some facade of decency. Carolina shuts the door before she can hear too much of Kaikaina’s totally inappropriate questions.

She’ll miss the shirt she passed on - an old favorite, a heather grey from the men’s department with some pithy line about sarcasm, but York left behind his vintage Star Wars one. Carolina puts it on a hanger and resolves not to wear it, at least for now.

But she grabs the one next to it when she goes to bed, and she falls asleep with her nose filled with the scents of late spring, aloe, and York.


End file.
